Forgiven (26 page)

Fifteen minutes later, they were all gathered in the family room—Katy and Jenny and Jim and ten of the older CKT kids, including Bailey and Tim Reed.

“We love the idea of a Bible study,” Tim spoke out first. “But what’s the real reason you have us here, Katy?”

She steadied herself. The day had already brought so much emotion. “The real reason is a guy named Jeremy Fisher.”

“The drunk driver?” Bailey sat up a little. Anger colored her expression.

“That’s funny, ‘cause we want to talk about him tOO,”

There were a few nods around the room, and Tim gave Katy a defeated look. “We think it’s wrong. What he did, the fact that he’d driven drunk so many times before. We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“I know.” Katy looked to Jenny, but she was whispering something to Jim. “You want to see him punished.”

“Punished hard.” One of the girls at the end of the sofa slapped her hand on her knee. “He should’ve been in jail, not out on the streets that night.”

“That’s probably true. I’m sure he’ll serve time for what happened to our friends.” Katy paused. God, soften their hearts, please. “The thing is, guys, I don’t think the Lord wants us to put our energy into seeingJeremy Fisher punished. That’s a job for lawyers and judges and juries.”

“We want a new law, Katy. That’s what we’ve been talking about.” Bailey stood, her voice impassioned. “The Sarah Jo

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Stryker law. If someone drives drunk once, they get a year in jail. Do it twice, and you lose your license forever.” She looked around the room and took notice of the approval from the oth ers. “We wanted to write it up today when we were together.”

“Then we’ll spread out into the community.” Another girl’s voice was just as fervent. She sounded angry and indignant. “We’ll have petitions everywhere, and we’ll get signatures.”

“Right.” One of the boys beside her raised his fist in the air. “This is America. You get enough signatures, you get on the bal lot. Then the voters can decide if someone like Jeremy Fisher should’ve been allowed on the road at all.”

“And while we’re at it, we’ll get signatures for this case too.” Bailey sat back down, but her intensity was still at an all-time high. “We want him to serve a life sentence. He took two lives, so serving one life seems like the fairest thing.”

“Guys …” Katy slid to the edge of the chair and looked around the room.

“Listen to yourselves.” She held the Bible on her lap, but before she opened it, an idea hit her. “I want to tell you a story, okay?” She made sure she had their attention. “Once there was a boy who grew up around here. He was an only child, and he liked bike riding with his mother and playing catch with his dad.”

The room quieted, and she was glad. She had their attention. “Each Christmas the family would go to church and read the story about Christ’s birth from the gospel of Luke. The boy got older, and he went to Clear Creek High—” she looked at Bailey—”same as a lot of you.”

At the other end of the room, Jenny and Jim linked hands. “The boy tried to make good choices, but his football friends were a bad influence on him. His parents had an idea. ‘Try some thing new,’ they told him. Band or chess club. Maybe drama.”

Katy’s voice was clear, the story strong on her lips. “Drama sounded pretty good to the boy. He loved being in the limelight, loved the way it felt when he was carrying the football down the

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sidelines, pushing himself toward the end zone. He wasn’t much of a singer, but his parents encouraged him anyway. There was a new community theater group in town, a Christian group. Surely such a group would have a place for this boy.

They were Christians after all. And Christians were accepting, right? So what if his voice was a little off?”

Tim Reed hung his head for a moment, and Katy wondered if he knew where she was headed with the story. She glanced around the room. “The boy decided to audition for the next play. If he made it, well, he’d still play football. But he’d have a new group of friends at least. Kids who didn’t want to drink or drive fast or sleep with their dates. He could hardly wait for tryoutS.”

Katy felt a wave of emotion, but she refused it. She had to finish the story, had to get it out while she still held their attention. “So the boy showed up for tryouts, only he couldn’t quite get the melody, not anytime through the song. The whole thing—every note of ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ was just a little off-key. Cuts were made that weekend, and the boy didn’t get a part.”

A few of the girls made quiet sounds of disapproval and regret. “But that wasn’t all that happened that week. Four days later, the boy’s father got a notice in the mail. See, he’s an army reservist. The government needed him in Iraq, and he had a week to report. One week. During that time, the boy’s parents argued more than usual, and a month after his father left, he noticed that his mother was gone more than she was home. When she announced that she was leaving on a vacation, he already knew the truth. She wasn’t coming back.”

Katy nodded, feeling the way the boy must’ve felt. “That was okay, he told himself. She could go. He still had his father. Only his father e-mailed and said his first leave wouldn’t be for six months.” She hesitated. “About that time the football friends realized something that made them crazy with joy. The boy lived all by himself now. He was sixteen, so he could do whatever he 216

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wanted, right? They cheered him on, congratulating him on good fortune. And every night of the week they brought cases of beer and had parties.”

She could tell by the faces around her that the kids could seei It didn’t take long before the boy realized something, He realized that drinking was an escape. Even after the parties were over, getting lost in a six-pack of Budweiser was better than fac. ing the truth that he lived alone, that his mother had walked out i on him without so much as a hug goodbye. Pretty soon the’ nights weren’t enough. He was an adult after all, so who needed high school? Besides, the kids at Clear Creek didn’t understand him. And the ones who might’ve—the drama kids involved in that Christian theater down the street—well, they’d rejected him too.”

Even the boys looked disturbed. Katy’s voice stayed strong and compassionate as the story continued. “One season blended into another; and the boy began to worry. Drinking wasn’t an option anymore—it had become a lifestyle. He got a ticket for driving drunk and then another. When his father came home from Iraq for a month, he tried to get help for his son. ‘Don’t do this,’ he told the boy.

‘You’ll ruin your life. You have to stay away from the stuff.’ And for a while, the boy did stay away. But when the boy’s dad went back to Iraq, the loneliness set in again and so did the drinking. Night after night after night, right through the spring and summer and on into the fall.”

Katy looked at Bailey. Her expression was softer than before, but her eyes were dry. Please, God…

She took a quick breath and finished the story. “It all ended late one horrible night. That was the night the boy drank at a club with a bunch of football friends. But they were smart enough to get rides home with people who hadn’t been drinking. Not this boy. With no one waiting at home for him, he figured he could make it back without getting in trouble.” She shook her 217

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head. “But that’s not what happened. He was too drunk to drive, and he crossed the yellow line. On the other side, a van full of kids was coming home from a night of pizza and ice cream.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “A van with Sarah Jo Stryker and Ben Hanover inside.”

Katy folded her hands and let the story sit for a moment. There was nothing more to say, because they all knew the ending from there. They’d all lived it.

Sniffling came from several of the kids, and a few minutes later, Katy held her hands out toward them. “See, guys, I’m not sure we need a petition if we’re going to come together and talk about Jeremy Fisher.” She lifted the big brown book in her lap and handed it to the girl closest to her. “Maybe we need a Bible.”

Tim looked at her. His eyes were soft and open again, the way she was used to seeing them. “Is it true, Katy? The part about CKT—did he really try out?”

“He did.” It was something she’d found out late last night. Bethany Allen, the area coordinator, had pulled her aside after the late meeting and told her.

She’d been cleaning out computer files when she came across Jeremy’s name and the notes explaining why he wasn’t cast in the show.

“I think I remember him.” One of the girls hugged her knees to her chest. “He was a nice kid. Curly brown hair, sort of tall. I remember he was off-key in his song.”

“He tried like three times, I think.” Another girl folded her hands. “When he left, no one said anything to him.” She looked at the others. “Probably because no one knew him.”

They were quiet again, the reality ofJeremy Fisher’s life settling in on them.

Bailey was the first to stand up. She looked at Katy and then at the others.

“I’ll go get the Bibles.”

And in that moment, Katy knew wherever the journey led them, God would see them through. Because for the first time

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hatred and anger and revenge weren’t having the last word when: it came to Jeremy Fisher.

Love was.

The cell where Jeremy Fisher now lived was colder than usual.l He couldn’t stop shivering, couldn’t stop wondering what his father would think if he knew his boy was in jail. He didn’t know yet, but he would know soon. By now there would be a week’s worth of unanswered e-mails. Eventually he’d call the school and find out the truth.

Or maybe he’d already done that. Whatever happened when his father found out, he deserved it. The old man would probably disown him. Maybe he’d stay in Iraq a few years longer and climb the ranks, since he had nothing to come home to.

Jeremy twisted his hands together and winced from the pain. He’d rubbed the skin raw between his thumbs and the rest of his fingers. Too much hand wringing, too much worry. Not about himself, but about the families of the kids who died.

Drama kids, right? Wasn’t that what he’d read? Kids who might’ve been his friends if things had turned out differently. What were they doing now, and what did they think of him?

They probably wanted to take him out in a forest somewhere and shoot him cold.

He wouldn’t blame them. It was what he deserved. Jeremy ran his hands along the sides of his arms and tried to ward off the chills. Was any place as cold as this? He didn’t think so, but then the whole cold thing had become part of the pattern.

He’d think again and again about what he knew of the accident, how he’d been driving drunk and veered over the yellow line and pretty much decimated a van full of kids. When that thought sank in, the way he tried to get it to sink in every few minutes, he’d think about how worthless he was, how he had no 219

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reason to live. And then he’d imagine the families of the kids taking him to some remote place and blowing his head off. Everyone would feel better then.

When the thoughts came full circle, he would realize how cold he was. That’s where he was in the cycle of things right now. Freezing cold, man. Colder than fall mornings on the football field. The cell should’ve been heated, and even if it wasn’t, it was only mid-September. So where was the cold coming from?

That’s when it hit him. The cold wasn’t coming from outside. It was coming from inside, deep inside his heart and soul. He was worthless, and that meant he had nothing but ice on the inside. He banged his head back against the cement-block wall. Worthless, worthless, worthless. He never should’ve been born.

There was a sound in the hallway, and someone walked toward his cell. “Fisher?”

“Yes?” For an instant, he had the craziest thought. Maybe his mother had found out about his arrest, and she’d come to talk to him, to apologize to him for leaving. They would let him out for a few minutes so he could hug her and tell her how sorry he was for letting her down, for doing the unthinkable. Then she’d promise to stay by his side and help him through whatever lay ahead.

A stout-looking prison guard shouted at him, “Fisher, you’ve got a visitor.” The man stepped aside and someone came into view. But it wasn’t his mother. It was a woman, a beautiful woman. About ten years older than he.

She waited until the guard took a few steps back. Then she gripped the bars of his cell and gave him a partial smile. “Hello, Jeremy.”

“Hi.” He’d seen her somewhere before, but he couldn’t figure out where. Maybe it was just his imagination. “Are you a lawyer?”

“No.” She looked straight into his eyes. “I’m not a lawyer.”

That’s when he noticed that she had something in her hand. “What’s that?”

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“The deputy said I could give it to you.” She slipped it through the bars. “It’s a Bible promise book.” She waited until he had taken it from her. “Have you seen one before?”

“Yes.” A memory flashed in his mind. He and his parents walking across a gravel parking lot into a church service. That day, everyone was given a little book.

The pastor called it the same thing: a Bible promise book. Scriptures broken into topics, if he remembered it right. He blinked and the image faded. “I had one a long time ago.”

“Well, now you have a new one.” She hesitated, and he ex pected her to look uncomfortable. If she was some church girl come to do him a good deed, then she’d done that. It was time for her to back away and say some sort of awkward goodbye. But she didn’t. “Open it to page seventy-seven.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. Who was she, and why did she care if he read something from page seventy-seven? Still, she was the only one who had come, and if she wanted him to turn the pages, he would. It was the least he could do. He ran his thumb over the cover and opened it. Inside, some words were written: Jeremy, don’t ever stop believing.

Tears came rarely for Jeremy, but he felt the sting of them now. He rubbed his eyes and flipped the pages until he arrived at the spot she had told him about.